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A consumer says that he and others with an HP “Instant Ink” subscription are left with faulty, error-prone cartridges in a class action lawsuit filed in California federal court Tuesday.
Lead plaintiff Radek Barnert wants to represent other HP Instant Ink subscribers who were promised an “endless supply of printer ink,” but ended up with late and faulty cartridges that leaves their printers inoperable for extended periods of time.
The plaintiff claims he pre-paid for a two-year HP Instant Ink subscription when he purchased a new printer from Best Buy in June, 2020. As a result of late shipments of multiple error-prone cartridges, he says he was unable to use his printer for 35 days. He says that other flaws in the program render him unable to cancel the subscription or use store-bought ink for excessive down times.
“In a rush to convert its business model to a subscription-based business, HP launched its subscription-based ‘Instant Ink’ program, which is supposed to provide owners of HP printers with an essentially endless supply of printer ink—without ever having to wait to purchase new ink cartridges—because replacement ink cartridges are always at the ready,” explains the class action lawsuit.
Those who subscribe to the HP Instant Ink program are promised that their printer will notify the company when the cartridges get low. Then, in exchange for a flat, monthly fee, HP will send subscribers replacement cartridges so they never run out of ink.
The HP Instant Ink subscription comes with two “significant catches,” alleges Barnert.
First, subscribers are only allowed to use HP ink cartridges that are supplied by the program and cannot use store-bought supplies. While this should not be a problem because the HP Instant Ink program purports to keep subscribers supplied with the cartridges they need, the plaintiff says “HP routinely cannot deliver upon the promises it made regarding the Program.”
“Specifically, HP routinely fails to timely provide Subscribers with replacement printer cartridges, and, even when it does, Subscribers find themselves overwhelmed with errors that prevent them from printing,” alleges the class action lawsuit.
Barnert alleges that he and other HP Instant Ink subscribers are often left unable to use their printers for extended periods of time because of problems with the program. Further, when customers complaint, HP claims that it cannot fix the problems and instead offers to ship more ink cartridges – a process that can take more than a week.
To add insult to injury, HP requires subscribers to purchase ink cartridges as a part of the Instant Ink program; however, if they cancel their subscription, HP disables the cartridges and forces them to buy new ink cartridges from a retail location, claims the class action lawsuit.
The plaintiff also accuses HP of misrepresenting its promise to recycle used ink cartridges at no cost to subscribers. Barnert alleges that the company refused to send the prepaid shipping materials to return his used or malfunctioning ink cartridges and told him to instead throw them away.
HP violated the terms of its own contract with its Instant Ink subscribers, as well as consumer protection laws, alleges the class action lawsuit. Barnert wants to represent Instant Ink subscribers nationwide, as well New York subclasses.
The plaintiff wants to put a stop to the HP Instant Ink subscription and also force the company to reimburse him and other Class Members.
Do you pay for an HP Instant Ink subscription? We want to hear from you! Tell us about your experience in the comment section below.
The plaintiff is represented by Mark L. Javitch of the Javitch Law Office, and Thomas A. Zimmerman, Jr. and Matthew C. De Re of Zimmerman Law Offices.
The HP Instant Ink Subscription Class Action Lawsuit is Barnert v. HP, Inc., Case No. 5:21-cv-05199 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California San Jose Division.
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573 thoughts onHP ‘Instant Ink’ Renders Printers ‘Entirely Worthless,’ Claims Class Action Lawsuit
Same as all the other complaints. I’m out of ink, and they continue to charge me every month.
Yeah, this. All of these subscription programs need to be illegal. I’ve had my printer for a couple years and have never gotten a replacement cartridge (I would just print stuff at work … the Fortune 5 (not 500) company I work for decided that it was more profitable to force employees to work from home. Try to print and there is clearly no ink. App shows ink is full … computer illiterate on the phone says “but it shows it is full”. Debit card got locked by bank for something that decided was fraud in error which annoyed me until the HP payment failed as a result. They’re too stupid and/or lazy to run it again and keep sending “update your payment method” emails. Bought a new printer from someone else, the HP is sitting in the trash can waiting for the truck. I guess reading these I do need to take the time to actually cancel though in case they do have a competent employee.
I couldn’t use one of my HP instant ink printers since October 2022. It wouldn’t read the color cartridge they sent me. I had a replacement sent and it still wouldn’t read the color cartridge. I spent hours over 10 months trying to trouble shoot with their customer service, thinking I made progress only to be back at square one, paying a monthly fee, and having to spend money at a local print shop to have documents I needed. I couldn’t use regular cartridges in the printer which also wasn’t made clear so that was also wasted money. I know how the program should work because another printer on HP Instant Ink worked fine. However, I found on that printer, they weren’t rolling over unused pages as they were supposed to and were instead charging me overages if I went over my monthly allotment for that printer, despite should have had 50 rolled over pages. I’m glad people are bringing light to this.
All of a sudden my Pinter acts like it’s jammed. Then in the middle of a print job it prints out a page full of colors. It then says I’ve installed store bought ink. Which I hadn’t. It was the same cartridge I had been using. Then the entire printer stops working! I try resetting, Unplugging, installing new instant ink. Nothing works. It just says print job not accepted and I’m stuck with no printer even though it’s BRAND NEW!!! I find it ridiculous that I have to pay for ink then pay for pages. This is a rip off. If you use it to fast you have to stop what your are doing and WAIT for hp to mail u a new cartridge. If you want to cancel I guess u need store bought ink right there bc it stops working. SCAM
If I had known what a nightmare it would be dealing with HP Instant Ink, I would’ve never bought the printer. Within the first couple of days of purchasing the printer, I noticed black lines on everything being printed. After following all the necessary troubleshooting steps and instructions, multiple times, I contacted HP in hopes of having the issue resolved, no problem. Well, that was a nightmare in and of itself. After going back and forth with HP about the printer, the finally sent me a replacement, almost 2 months later. Then the nightmare with the ink cartridges started. I, like so many others, would run out of ink before the replacement cartridges would arrive. Most of the time they were “out of stock” and would almost be a month before receiving them. When the cartridges were finally delivered (after waiting a month for delivery) they never worked, forcing me to call HP every time, only for them to tell me they were defective cartridges and they were sending me new ones. The replacement cartridges would come in and the cycle would continue with me having to call them, yet again, about the cartridges not working. They finally sent legit cartridges and about 3-4 months later I canceled my subscription because of school ending and I didn’t need to print as much as before. My debt card ended up expiring and I never
updated my payment method on the APP but, clicked on the option to cancel my subscription. That’s when I found out I could no longer use the ink cartridges I paid for through my subscription, at the time, with HP Instant Ink. I had 8 brand new ink cartridges that I paid for yet couldn’t use nor could they be returned or my money refunded. Fast forward 6 months, and my kids needed the printer for school and reactivated my subscription with HP Instant Ink. Check my bank account not long after and they charged me for the months I was no longer subscribed to. When I called to inquire about the unauthorized payments they told me I had to pay for those months because my subscription was still “active” and I never updated my payment method. I asked if they were going to send me the ink cartridges and credit my account for the roll over pages, since I technically paid for them. I was told I would be getting neither because I haven’t printed anything in about 6 months and the printers ink levels were still pretty full. So, not only did HP not cancel my subscription when I canceled through their APP, they also made an unauthorized payment to my bank account for the months during the cancellation. I never received ink cartridges for those months, nor roll over pages and to mention, I couldn’t use my printer because I canceled my subscription. Please make this make sense to me?!
This is an absolute criminal program. I was charged hundreds for using my printer over their determined page count despite paying for the ink already. And now I sit with a bricked printer and full cartridges after cancelling this obvious grift. I need a workhorse printer for my job and this program has cost me so much money and time.
I purchased the instant ink program and eventually paid for a couple of months of service before I dropped the program. Now my printer refuses to print. As I troubleshoot, I found out that dropping the program causes the printer to refuse to print with the cartridges provided by thru the instant ink program. I paid for them, they are my property!!!!! This is clearly extortion in my opinion.
I was taking care of my dying mother-in-law. I called Hp and asked them to pause my instant ink because no one was at home. When I got home I find my
Printer is completely locked down, and after many tries they have not unlocked it. Two years later my printer still doesn’t work.
Instant Ink and HP is stopping my printer from working so annoying and uncalled for and then they said that some of the pages were out of plan so charge astronomically as well, counting pages sent to print without printing as tally for the month. So unfair.
I have 2 months of hp ink but because I can’t use it because hp has my printer on lock down. They told me to use ink from a store which I tried but they still have my printer hostage…
I’ve got the same problem! They’ve frozen My Printer I Refuse to pay a Monthly Fee because I’ve only received 1 replacement in a Year! I was on with a Supposed Tech who I barely understood for over 2 hours trying to get it Unfrozen with No Luck! How can they control my Printer that I Paid For???